new blogger?

Just finally got set up for new blogger. Have not yet noticed a special razzle-dazzle here. What's the difference?

In other news: I've got a new address in the non-virtual world. At least, I will if the home inspection goes well on Thursday. And it will. The sellers have already had two inspections for various purposes, so I'll be shocked if too much turns up.

940 words per hour?

As a little test, I just spent the last hour writing. In that hour, I wrote 940 words. At that rate, I would need to write for 53.19 hours to reach 50,000 words. In otherwords, I could write for two hours a day for 27 days, or 3 hours a day for 18 days. That almost seems do-able.

How much time is realisticly available?...excluding Thanksgiving and the following day, and the bridesmaid-prep day, there would be 19 weekdays on which to write. Again excluding Thanksgiving and the wedding, there are 5 available weekend days. That's a total of 24 days. Now, one of those days includes a baby shower, and I'd like to include a little celebration of my own birth too, so let's knock off two days. Assuming something unexpected would come up at least once or twice, I'll knock off two more days for a good measure. We're back to 20 days of writing. At 20 days, each day would need to yield 2,500 words. Gah.

At the 940 words an hour rate, that could work. But, chances are slim that I could keep up that sort of pace. The problem again comes back to plot and story. Tonight, I just completly wrote the first thing that came into my head. It's not really a story, just sort of some rambling about two girls walking to the bar, with a little bit of background on the characters. When I need a name or detail, I just went with the first thing that occured to me. That may not be the best plan for a novel. Would three hours in front of a computer yield three hours of steady writing? Impossible. Is two hours out of three overly optimistic?

The math is scaring me off.

I need a plot.

So, I'm thinking about writing a novel next month. NaNoWriMo. The goal is a 50,000 word novel, created entirely in November. If I wrote every day, I'd need to churn out about 1,700 words a day. Given that I wouldn't really do it everyday (e.g. on the days I put in 12-14 hours at work, wear a bridesmaid dress, give thanks for turkey, or otherwise make merry...)I figure my daily goal would have to be closer to 2,500 words.

That's alot of words, my friend. A lot of words.

Every week at work I write about 40 pages, give or take. I wonder how many words that is? Too bad they're confidential.

The really big worry: Novels need plots. Sans plot, 50,000 is even longer.

TinFoil passed the bar.

Who am I kidding? Tin Foil went into the bar.
Several bars, if I must be completely frank.

The bar: eet ees feeneeshed.

Okay, so it was finished about a week ago. It was pretty terrible. I felt (surprisingly) okay after day 1. The essay topics were ugly but fair. The second day was horrendous. There were several known casualties, with more to surely follow in October. Here's hoping I'm not among those who fall when the Board of Law Examiners posts the list.

The first week off has been good. I've been out with friends and am now turning the corner from sociable to lazy.

How much law can I learn in ten days?

Hopefully a lot.

I've been studying for the Bar. It's dreadful. Far worse than when I studied to work at a bar; I still don't know what's in a Manhattan. Or what vermouth is.

No, this bar exam will put me and about 774 other fools together for two full days, and torture us with 14-19 different subjects. It drives me bananas that I can't even say with authority that there are x-number of subject tested on the exam. It's a counting and grouping issue, so the number varies depending who you talk to. Corporation and Partnership: one subject or two? It doesn't matter at all, but if I commit to the lower number, it seems like I've overlooked something. If I commit to the higher number, it seems like I'm exaggerating.

So far, I've spent most of my time on the subjects that are tested on the Multistate Exam. (Day two.) It will cover Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Law, Torts, Contracts, Sales/UCC, Evidence, and Property. Even with all the work I've put in, I'm just not where I need to be yet. That still leaves 8-11 subjects that have been basically not studied at all. Day One may be a problem.

Ah well. Let's go pull it together, eh?

MSN Game Zone reads my blog

As I recently reported, Cubis 2 has 20 levels. That seemed true until this weekend.

Now--randomly--instead of congratulating me at 20, it occaisonally just starts over with Level One, renamed as Level 21. What's up Microsoft? Why, Bill, why? There's no thrill in completion if you just cycle through again.

Give me new levels, or give me a sense of finality, completetion.

If the game is infinite, I can't make little promises that I'll start working "after I win." Where's the justice.